•v 


THE  RELATIONS  OF  CAPITAL 

- AND - 

POLITICS  TO  THE  PEOPLE. 


BY 

i 


MISS  LILLIAN  A.  WHITNE  Y 


DEDICATION, 


TO  THE  INDOMITABLE  ItEBUILDERS  OP  A  DESTROYED  CITY. 

i 

PROPRIETORS  OF  THE  MOST  WONDERFUL  OF  CITIES,  CREATORS  OF 
THE  WHITE  CITY,  PATRONS,  PROMOTERS  AND  STUDENTS  OF  LABOR, 
LEARNING,  LETTERS,  COMMERCE,  INVENTION  AND  MORALS — THE 
PEOPLE  OF  CHICAGO— DO  I,  WITH  TIMIDITY,  RESPECTFULLY 
DEDICATE  THIS  PAMPHLET. 


MISS  LILLIAN  A.  WHITNEY, 

512  Otto  Street,  Chicago,  Ills. 


January  31st,  1899. 


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INTRODUCTORY. 


The  economic  problems  suggested  by  the  title  1  have 
adopted  for  this  pamphlet  are  now  and  have  ever  been, 
since  the  abolishment  of  monarchism,  the  vital  concerns  of 
the  individual  citizen.  Such  concerns,  however,  notwith¬ 
standing  their  momentous  importance,  must  be  intrusted  to 
the  political  representative  of  the  citizens;  the  theory  being 
that  they  may  be  with  perfect  safety  so  delegated  because 
the  qualifications  and  principles  of  the  citizens’  representa¬ 
tive  are  so  absolutely  sound  that  he  will  in  nothing  err  in 
this  great  trust  placed  in  his  keeping  and  management.  Un¬ 
less  the  people  shall  sleep  upon  their  rights,  or  become  leth¬ 
argic  and  indifferent  to  their  chief  source  of  happiness  and 
dearest  interests — in  this  government  where  there  is  no 
sovereign  power  excepting  that  springing  from  the  people 
— no  one  can  hold  an  executive  or  representative  office 
unless  his  qualifications  and  principles  shall,  beyond 
question,  fit  him  for  such  a  position  in  full  accord 
with  the  theory  stated.  In  writing  this  introductory, 
after  the  manuscript  for  the  body  ot  this  work  was 
completed  for  the  printer,  I  could  not  help  compar¬ 
ing  the  extreme  diffidence  with  which  I  have  addressed 
the  people  of  Chicago,  through  the  following  pages — 
my  conclusions  and  propositions  all  supported  by  the 
most  undoubted  fact,  or  by  the  very  best  and  most  unan¬ 
imous  authority  upon  the  sciences  of  Civil  Law  and 
Political  Economy  recorded  in  the  English  language,  to  the 
calmness  and  effrontery  with  which  Mr.  Harrison,  our  pres- 

(5) 


6 


ent  Mayor,  during  the  three  or  four  last  months  of  1898, 
addressed  the  same  people  with  declarations  and  proposi¬ 
tions  so  radically  and  wholly  opposed  to  law  and  common 
sense  that  the  same  became  monstrosities  simply;  whom 
the  mayor  of  this  intelligent  city,  with  continuous  clamor¬ 
ous  declamation,  assailed  with  assertions  that  consisted  in, 
nothing  excepting  their  own  immense  propositions  of,  shal¬ 
lowness;  the  whole  fabric  supported  by  one  single  huge 
monolith — “  I  vow  I  will  eat  my  own  hat.”  It  is  possible  a 
hat,  from  the  head  containing  so  many  strange  ideas,  if  eaten, 
would  not  injure  the  digestive  apparatus  of  a  stomach  con¬ 
taining  so  much  gall.  Mr.  Harrison  has  been  permitted  to 
declare  his  follies  and  pernicious  dogma  to  the  people  with 
impunity;  the  corrupt  trust  press  of  this  city  made  a  great 
show  and  pretense  of  supporting  the  mayor’s  unconstitutional 
and  impossible  proposals,  catering  freely,  to  all  appearances, 
to  his  puerilities — as  to  what  constituted  “  robbing  ” 
“  grabbing  ”  etc.,  etc.,  but  totally  ignored  my  two  pamphlets 
11  The  Rights  of  Railway  and  Street  Car  Companies.”  I  was 
naturally  hurt  at  the  treatment  accorded  to  my  literary 
labor  by  many  of  the  newspapers  of  my  own  home 
until  I  learned  the  reason  for  it — dollars.  Neither  cents, 
sense,  nor  cent  caused  such  treatment:  it  wTas  dollars; 
more  accurately  speaking,  a  lust  for  the  dollars — in 
very  great  numbers — of  certain  prosperous  enterprises 
of  the  people.  The  cupidity  of  such  rapacious  harpies 
compared  to  the  strength  of  Sampson,  would  leave 
that  remarkable  superhuman  power — like  the  results 
obtained  by  solutions  of  certain  algebraic  problems — with 
the  minus  sign  before  it.  The  declaration,  however,  may  be 
here  recorded,  that,  throughout  the  transaction,  the  usual 
good  judgment  of  highwaymen  was  markedly  prominent: 
the  enterprises  sought  to  be  held  up,  by  great  industry  and 


7 


legitimate  and  determined  energy  were  in  possession  of  the 
wanted  dollars  in  great  abundance.  The  trifling  circum¬ 
stances — the  dollars  being  wanted — that  the  same,  by  the 
canon  of  God  and  the  positive  unmistakable  laws  of  man, 
belonged  to  such  healthy,  prosperous  enterprises,  was  not 
permitted,  never  is,  as  an  interfering  factor,  to  enter  into 
such  proceedings. 


L.  A.  W. 


CHAPTER  I. 


Adah—  God,  the  Eternal !  Parent  of  all  things ! 

Who  didst  create  these  best  and  beauteous  beings, 

To  be  beloved,  more  than  all,  save  thee — 

Let  me  love  thee  and  them All  hail !  all  hail ! 

— Byron. 

The  right  of  man  to  seek  for,  acquire  possession  of,  to  hold 
the  undisputed  dominion  over,  after  it  has  been  acquired, 
and  to  be  secured  in  peaceable  enjoyment  of  property,  is 
found  to  have  emanated  from  the  Creator  of  man,  contem¬ 
poraneously  with  His  creation  of  all  property;  the  right  is 
so  ancient  that  no  other  rule  has  been  discovered  antedat¬ 
ing  it:  Such  right  begins — whether  such  date  as  fixed  by 
Moses,  Herbert  Spencer  or  Voltaire  be  accepted-r-with  the 
creation  of  time.  It  is  not  a  mere  truism  to  assert  that 
doctrine  which  assails  this  ancient  and  most  essential  pre¬ 
rogative  of  man  assails  his  chief  source  of  happiness:  in  the 
city  of  Chicago  lately — by  men  whose  intelligence  and  san¬ 
ity  on  all  other  questions  must  be  admitted — the  people 
have  been  requested  to  aid  in  the  total  annihilation  of  man’s 
rights  in  property;  to  lend  countenance  and  support  to 
policies  that,  should  such  become  dominant,  would  be 
more  certainly  destructive  of  all  happiness,  prospects 
and  hopes  of  the  people,  than  the  Bubonic  plague  has  proved 
itself  to  be  destructive  of  human  life  in  East  India  lately. 
Should  the  people  be  requested,  by  Mr.  Harrison  and  his 
following  of  reformers,  to  aid  in  stealing  the  newsboys’ 
pennies,  or  forcing  the  mechanic  to  turn  over  nine-tenths  of 
his  wages  without  consideration,  the  depth  of  wickedness 
and  absurdity  of  such  a  proposition,  by  the  sciences  of 

(9) 


10 


Ethics  and  Economics,  are  not  so  great  as  the  depths  of 
wickedness  and  absurdity  of  the  proposition,  made  by  the 
above  named  official  and  following — emphasized  by  re¬ 
peated  reiterations  to  the  people — that  the  people  of  Chi¬ 
cago  shall  first  aid  in  robbing  their  own  spleudid  industry, 
the  traction  companies,  and  then  aid  in  the  total  destruc¬ 
tion  of  such  companies.  The  folly  and  wickedness  of  the 
hypothetical  proposition  is  plainly  visible.  Should  not  the 
actual  proposition,  when  it  is  clearly  more  wicked  and  cer¬ 
tainly  more  extremely  pernicious,  be  looked  upon  with 
horror  by  the  educated,  sensible,  church-going,  moral  people 
to  whom  it  has  been  addressed  ? 

The  hatred  of  capital,  capitalists,  and  all  prosperous  and 
necessitous  enterprises  of  the  people,  that  has  gained  a  hold 
upon  apart  of  the  public  mind ,  in  America,  within  the  last 
thirty  years — (it  does  not  date  back  of  thirty  years  in  this 
country) — as  slight  as  its  hold  is,  to  the  student  of  its  phases 
and  ramifications,  is  simply  terrifying.  It  is  only  after 
some  specific  studying  of  this  hatred  that  the  mind  is 
startled  into  repellent  activity.  This  malignant  animosity, 
named  above,  is  as  certainly  an  economic  disease,  threat¬ 
ening  the  destruction  of  the  peace  and  hopes  of  society,  un¬ 
less  it  shall  receive  enlightened  and  effectual  treatment,  as 
that  small-pox  is  certainly  a  disease,  which  requires  most 
careful  and  enlightened  medical  treatment,  when  it  assails 
the  physical  body,  to  prevent  such  disease  from  destroy¬ 
ing  the  life  of  the  body  its  attack  is  made  upon.  It 
is  well  settled,  in  the  science  of  medicine,  that  all  dis¬ 
eases  spring  from  maliguant  microbes;  therapeutics 
teaches  the  physician  that  the  germs  of  diseases  must 
be  eradicated  to  prevent  wide-spread  suffering  and  de¬ 
struction  of  life;  and  teaches  the  specific  remedies  that 
must  be  applied  by  the  physician  to  effectually  bring  about 


11 


such  desirable  eradication.  This  hatred  of  capital  and 
prosperous  industry,  that  the  writer  is  endeavoring  to 
direct  the  reader’s  attention  to  here — as  certainly  existing 
as  that  the  Asiatic  Cholera  has  existed  at  certain  times— it 
is  well  settled  in  the  science  of  Economics,  springs  from 
malignant  microbes,  that  drifted  into  Castle  Garden  some 
thirty  years  ago,  from  Europe;  and  that  the  eradication  of 
such  malignant  deadly  microbes  is  absolutely  essential  in 
order  to  protect  society  from  the  destructive  and  disastrous 
force  of  the  disease  now  being  engendered  by  them.  What 
would  be  thought  of  the  physician,  who  would  calmly 
declare  to  the  people,  that  yellow  fever  germs  could  be  pla¬ 
cated  and  transformed  into  useful  things  by  permitting 
them  to  obliterate  all  human  life  in  certain  large  sections 
of  the  country?  Or  who  should  attempt  to  promulgate  such 
a  ridiculous  doctrine  as  this:  after  all  human  life  has 
been  wiped  out,  in  Louisiana,  Texas,  and  Porto  Rico,  by  the 
disease — yellow  fever — the  germs  that  produce  yellow  fever 
will  then  not  only  quit  assailing  human  life  in  the  United 
States,  but  will  become  useful  entities?  The  doctrine  that 
we  people  of  Chicago  are  being  coolly  requested  to  adopt,  by 
our  mayor  and  his  following — “Aid  and  countenance  the 
robbing  and  destruction  of  two  or  three  of  the  people’s  own 
most  necessary  and  healthy  industries,  then  the  malignant 
microbes,  which  produce  Anarchism  and  Socialism,  will 
cease  seeking  the  death  of  labor  and  happiness  in  America, 
and  become  useful  adjuncts  of  existence.”  This  last 
doctrine — not  only  actually  proposed,  but  most  persist¬ 
ently  urged  and  recommended,  as  healthy  and  wise,  to 
the  people,  by  the  man  that  will  ask  to  be  returned  to 
the  most  important  and  honorable  official  position  within 
their  gift — is  more  absurd — more  contrary  to  all  funda¬ 
mental  or  natural  principles — than  the  hypothetical  doc- 

CN, 


12 


trine  proposed  within  the  foregoing  question  marks.  Shall 
we,  by  a  supine  indifference,  lend  even  passive  coun¬ 
tenance  to  this  municipal  ownership — this  socialistic,  sui 
generis  crowd,  by  not  declaring  our  antagonism  to,  and  horror 
at,  its  rotten,  pernicious  teachings  ?  The  thing  that  is  try¬ 
ing  to  lead  us  to  rob  and  destroy  our  streetcar  and  railway 
companies,  could  it  consummate  its  deadly  design  to  that 
extent,  would  no  more  stop  at  that  than  a  virulent  conta¬ 
gion  would  cease,  by  its  own  intentions,  from  destroying  life 
in  a  populous  center,  after  killing  three  or  four  people 
therein:  its  sole  aim  and  purpose,  in  this  country,  is  first, 
the  robbing  from  labor  of  all  that  which  labor  has  earned 
and  created — our  national  strength — then  the  death  of  this 
nation  itself;  then,  after  all  good  in  this  country  had  been 
by  it  annihilated — like  the  ferocious  being  springing  from 
the  teeth  of  the  fabled  Cadmus  dragon — it  would  turn  upon 
and  murder  itself. 

All  property  is  capital.  Property  exists,  and  did  exist 
primarily,  yet  primarily  it  only  existed  in  substance  and 
not  as  property.  Nothing  can  have  the  elements  or  quali¬ 
ties  of  property  that  is  not  required  to  supply  some  need  or 
want  of  man.  No  need  or  want  of  man  can  be  supplied 
excepting  by  the  movement  of  some  energy — labor.  There¬ 
fore,  since  property  can  acquire  its  qualities  and  elements, 
as  such  thing,  only  through  labor — property,  and  all  capi¬ 
tal,  is  the  production  and  creation  of  labor.  The  conclusion 
clearly  follows — if  labor  can  not  move  without  producing 
capital — will  not  move  excepting  for  the  purpose  of  its  cre- 
tion — labor  and  capital  are  essential  to  each  other;*  that  an 
injury  of  one  would  result  in  an  equal  injury  to  each;  that 
any  destruction  of  capital  would,  to  the  same  extent, 


*Vide  Rights  of  Railway  and  Street  Car  Companies,  Vol.  II,  by  the  author. 


13 


destroy  labor.  This  can  be  well  illustrated  here  by  a  sim¬ 
ple  proposition,  the  central  idea  only  borrowed,  used  by 
Frederick  Bastiat,  in  his  discussion  of  another  branch 
of  this  same  subject:  Suppose  one  thousand  people  should 
be  placed  upon  a  beautiful  fertile  island,  that  could,  after  a 
time,  be  made  to  produce  all  things  which  the  thousand 
people  should  require  for  their  sustenance,  comfort,  happi¬ 
ness  and  prosperity;  the  island  will  produce  the  needed 
things — wealth — only  in  answer  to  the  movement  upon  it 
of  labor  and  expenditure  therein  of  capital;  the  thousand 
inhabitants  of  the  island  possess  a  sufficient  quantity  of  sur¬ 
plus  clothing,  seeds,  food-stuffs,  ability  and  tools — capital — 
to  maintain  the  life  of  all  of  them  until  their  splendid  terri¬ 
tory  can  be  made  to  reproduce  these  objects  absolutely 
essential  to  the  existence  of  these  people,  and  which  can  be 
obtained  in  no  other  way  by  them.  The  demand  then 
existing — that  their  fertile  island  shall  be  made  to  repro¬ 
duce,  so  that  the  life  of  its  people  may  be  supported  beyond 
a  limited  period — rests  upon  the  thousand,  as  a  community, 
inexorably;  it  confronts  each  individual  of  the  thousand  with 
an  equal  force — an  inexorable  necessity.  That,  by  natural 
and  providential  laws,  three  hundred  and  fifty  of  the  thou¬ 
sand  people  owned  and  controlled  all  the  afore-mentioned 
capital,  in  no  way  lessened  or  made  greater,  or  changed  the 
general  or  individual  responsibility  for  them,  any  loss  or 
diminution  of  the  capital  would  have  caused  the  same  amount 
of  hardship  to  the  six  hundred  and  fifty  without,  as  to  the 
three  hundred  and  fifty  with ,  capital.  Should  the  thousand 
people  have  taken  their  capital  from  the  three  hundred  and 
fifty,  to  whom  it  naturally  belonged,  and  given  it  to  an¬ 
other  three  hundred  and  fifty  of  their  number,  to  whom  it 
did  not  belong,  such  transposition  would  not  have  removed, 
or  in  any  way  placated  the  inexorable  necessity  which  con- 


14 


fronted  the  community  and  its  individuals;  but  would  have 
caused  suffering,  in  the  same  ratio,  to  each  one  of  the  thou¬ 
sand;  there  would  have  occurred  a  loss  of  time  and  a  con¬ 
siderable  shrinkage  of  the  capital,  pending  its  transposition 
and  consequent  suffering  in  proportion  to  such  loss.  It 
only  remains,  that  the  illustration  shall  be  complete:  divide 
this  capital,  of  this  one  thousand  people,  into  one  thousand 
parts,  behold  a  catastrophe — their  annihilation  inevitably 
results.  Could  anything  be  plainer  ?  The  thousand  people 
possessed  enough  capital,  in  the  hands  of  three  hundred  and 
fifty  of  their  number,  to  begin  with,  to  have  lasted  till  it 
could  have  been  reproduced  in  greater  abundance  and  no 
more;  labor  could  not  have  moved  in  their  country  with¬ 
out  the  capital ;  no  reproductions  of  capital  could  be  brought 
about  for  them  without  the  movement  of  labor;  the  conclu¬ 
sion  follows — the  general  division  of  the  original  capital, 
having  taken  away  the  only  aider  and  exciter  of  labor  which 
had  existed  in  their  beautiful  land — total,  and  unavoid¬ 
able,  extinction  now  confronted  this  one  thousand  human 
beings;  the  suffering  no  greater,  and  the  death  no  more 
certain,  of  the  three  hundred  and  fifty  capitalists,  than  the 
suffering  and  death  of  the  six  hundred  and  fifty  non-capital¬ 
ists.  It  can  not  be  urged  that  the  thousand  people  might 
have  realized  the  folly  of  their  policy  of  division  of  their 
capital,  and  restored  it  to  its  original  owners,  thereby  sav¬ 
ing  themselves,  if  not  from  suffering,  at  least  from  death — 
an  impossibility:  because  a  large  part  of  the  capital  had 
been  necessarily  consumed,  during  its  distribution.  Neither 
can  the  more  selfish  idea  be  urged  or  admitted — a  few  of 
the  one  thousand  might  have  saved  themselves  from  perish¬ 
ing  at  least,  by  restoring,  to  a  few  of  the  original  capitalists, 
as  far  as  it  would  reach,  the  original  capital,  in  a  quantity 
having  the  same  relative  value  it  had  originally — a  route, 


15 


for  the  escape  from  death  of  a  few  of  the  thousand — as  im¬ 
possible  as  the  former  impossible  route  assigned  for  the  es¬ 
cape  from  death  of  the  whole  thousand:  the  time,  necessary 
for  the  reproduction  of  those  things  required  to  maintain 
the  existence  of  the  one  thousand  as  a  community,  beyond 
a  limited  period  having  expired,  the  time  allotted  to  each 
individual,  for  the  same  purpose,  being  identical  therewith, 
had  also  expired. 

Money  is  in  no  sense  capital ;  it  merely  possesses  the  prov¬ 
ince  of  representing  capital.  The  reciting  the  history  of 
the  many  different  substances  which  have  been  used  as 
money,  or  mediums  of  exchange,  by  mankind,  from  the 
distant  past,  down  to  the  present  time — from  the  use  of 
shells  to  grain  and  oil,  from  Wampum  with  the  red  man, 
to  the  use  of  gophers’  tails  by  the  white  man  in  Dakota  as 
money,  from  gophers’  tails  to  wild  cat  banks  every¬ 
where — is  an  undertaking  too  great  for  the  limits  of  this 
pamphlet.  One  historical  incident,  of  a  substance  used  as 
a  medium  of  exchange — as  money — is  so  closely  connected 
with  the  very  interesting  history  of  the  city,  to  whose 
people  this  work  has  been  dedicated,  it  must  be  related  here 
in  passing. 

From  1859  to  1861  the  traction  companies  of  Chicago — 
then  just  beginning  their  most  useful  and  necessary  exist¬ 
ence — furnished  to  its  people,  through  the  twelve  and 
twenty  ride  tickets  of  the  traction  companies,  the  only 
medium  of  exchange  they  had  during  those  two  years;  this 
medium  of  exchange,  so  furnished,  passed  as  readily,  to  the 
full  amount  such  represented,  as  gold  and  silver;  these 
tickets  were  so  highly  esteemed  by  the  people,  and  were  so 
necessary,  as  a  medium  of  exchange,  that  counterfeits  of 
them,  when  known  to  be  such,  passed  as  readily  as  the 


genuine. 


16 


The  substance,  whatever  it  has  been,  within  any  given 
dates,  used  as  money,  has  ever  necessarily  been  respected 
and  desired.  The  principle  that  requires  that  money  shall 
be  respected  and  properly  desired  is  as  inexorably  essential 
to  the  well  being  and  happiness  of  man  as  the  principle  that 
requires  that  he  shall  respect  and  properly  desire  ability, 
cattle,  grain,  land,  houses — in  short  any  capital.  Money, 
representing  capital,  excites  labor  and  capital  into  activity, 
thereby  producing  plenty  and  prosperity.  Money  excites 
capital  to  move  from  one  district  to  another,  from  country 
to  country,  from  people  to  people,  continuously  arousing  new 
wants  of  men,  and  thereby  exciting  the  creation  of  additional 
capital  in  the  world.  It  is  always  a  substance  so  easily  lost — 
through  wrong  investment,  by  the  fluctuations  of  the  capital 
it  represents,  by  extravagance,  by  the  conduct  of  a  people  to 
whom  it  is  being  offered  in  exchange — that  it  is  therefore 
very  timid.  Any  policy  that  would  frighten  money  away 
from  a  locality  or  country  would  injure  capital  and  prevent 
reproduction,  thereby  causing  hardship  and  suffering  for 
the  people  of  such  locality  or  country.  Shall  the  people  of 
this  great  center  of  industry  lend  even  passive  countenance 
to  a  policy — the  question  as  to  advisability  of  voting  for  its 
advocates  too  utterly  absurd  for  any  discussion — that  is 
clearly  and  unmistakably  contrary  to  natural  and  funda¬ 
mental  law;  that  is  plainly  grossly  wicked,  therefore  most 
pernicious;  that  certainly  would  frighten  away  money; 
therefore  would  as  certainly  destroy  capital  and  cause  hard¬ 
ships  and  suffering? 

What  shall  be  the  opinion  of  the  world,  as  to  the  mor¬ 
als,  intelligence,  and  trustworthiness  of  that  people,  who, 
after  robbing  and  destroying  its  railway  and  street-car 
companies — essential  existences,  faithful  painstaking  serv¬ 
ants,  that  must  be  replaced,  as  soon  as  destroyed,  by  similar 


17 


servants — shall  coolly  demand  of  the  world  its  money  with 
which  to  restore  such  robbed  and  murdered  industries? 

The  United  States  has  progressed,  from  Plymouth  Rock 
and  the  days  of  the  hardy,  industrious  Pilgrim  Fathers  to 
the  750,000  visitors  of  the  9th  of  October,  1893,  at  the 
World’s  Fair,  and  the  days  of  unrivaled  Chicago,  without 
the  least  aid  from  the  false  doctrine — municipal  ownership. 
The  United  States  and  unrivaled  Chicago  will  continue  to 
progress,  through  all  time,  without  the  least  aid  from  the 
false  doctrine — municipal  ownership.  What  has  produced 
this  wonderful  commerce  of  this  city  of  parks,  the  noise  of 
the  thunders  of  which  is  heard  in  the  most  distant  lands? 
Its  industries — labor  and  capital.  Why  shall  the  voice  of 
the  broker  at  the  head  of  La  Salle  street  have  the  power  to, 
in  a  short  space  of  time  recorded  in  seconds,  cause  a  provis¬ 
ion  market,  more  than  ten  thousand  miles  away,  to  fluctu¬ 
ate?  It  is  a  potency  of  such  broker,  furnished,  and  created 
by  labor  and  capital.  What  has  created  the  immense 
structures  of  iron,  steel,  granite,  marble  and  brick,  that 
have  their  proud,  lofty  heads  nearly  in  the  clouds,  above 
the  pavements  of  Chicago,  in  every  direction?  That  only, 
which  could  create  them — labor  and  capital. 


i 


CHAPTER  1 1 . 


Abel.— God !  who  didst  call  the  elements  into 
Earth— ocean — air— and  fire,  and  with  the  day 
And  night,  and  worlds,  which  these  illuminate, 

Or  shadow,  madest  beings  to  enjoy  them, 

And  love  both  them  and  thee— all  hail !  all  hail ! 

— Byron. 

History  has  been  unable  to  assign  any  exact  or  certain 
date  for  the  beginning  of  the  use  of  the  science  of  politics 
by  the  human  family.  In  the  face  of  all  the  proofs  furnished 
by  the  most  painstaking  scientific  research,  it  must  be  ad¬ 
mitted  as  fact  that  humanity  appeared  on  the  earth  many 
tens  of  thousands  of  years  ago.  The  earliest  date  fixed  for 
the  appearance  of  political  man  upon  the  stage  of  human 
action — compared  to  the  dates  of  battles  of  Platsea,  Mara¬ 
thon,  conquests  of  Alexander  the  Great,  the  date  of  Joshua’s 
encamping  in  Gilgal,  of  Julius  Caesar’s  crossing  the  Rubicon, 
of  the  achievements  of  Odin,  the  one-eyed  god  of  ancient  Scan¬ 
dinavia — causes  the  dates  of  these  latter-named  occurrences 
to  appear  as  relatively  within  modern  times.  The  author 
of  these  pages  is  not  permitted,  by  her  researches,  to  con¬ 
clude,  with  Sir  John  Lubbock,  that  there  ever  was  such  a 
period — “ Ante-Political  Man;”  or  with  the  learned  Dr. 
Darwin  that  there  was,  in  most  ancient  days,  a  period  dur¬ 
ing  which  man  existed  only  as  a  substance  or  a  rudiment¬ 
ary  element — “  Protoplasm.”  The  fact  remains  indisputabW 
established,  however,  whatever  the  individual  opinion  may 
be  as  to  his  origin  or  beginning,  man  exists  now  as  man;  he 
has  existed  as  man  in  depths  of  the  past  wholly  beyond 
his  ken.  Behold  Confucius,  more  than  four  hundred 

(18) 


19 


years  before  the  birth  of  Christ,  teaching  precepts 
of  ethics  and  philosophy  to  a  people — organized  as  a  nation, 
the  beginning  of  whose  recorded  political  history  antedat¬ 
ing  the  birth  of  Confucius  more  than  two  thousand  years — 
the  real  beginning  of  whose  organized  political  existence 
lost  in  the  obscurity  of  still  greater  depths  of  the  past  than 
the  beginning  of  their  very  ancient  recorded  history. 
Behold  Plato  and  Aristotle,  centuries  before  the  beginning 
of  our  era,  writing  learnedly  in  relation  to  political  science 
and  ethics,  for  the  education  of  a  people — then  brilliantly 
organized  into  powerful  states  or  provinces,  having  all  the 
polish  of  manners,  scholarly  attainments,  arts,  pursuits  of 
husbandry,  and  trades,  that  accrue  to  a  people  through 
political  organization — the  recorded  beginning  of  whose 
politics  was  fixed  in  such  remote  periods  of  the  past  that  its 
gods  of  such  ancient  days  can  not  be  distinguished  from  its 
military  leaders  of  the  same  days,  say  historians;  yet  these 
same  philosophers,  last  named,  coolly  acknowledged  that 
they  drew  lessons  in  political  science  and  ethics  from 
nations  many  centuries  more  ancient  than  their  own. 
Who  shall  attempt  to  fix  this  period — “  Ante-Political 
man  ?” 

Whether  the  record  of  Moses,  the  theory  of  Darwin,  or 
the  opinion  of  Sir  John  Lubbock,  be  accepted,  for  the  be¬ 
ginning  of  the  use  of  political  science — law — it  has  been 
fully  agreed  upon,  by  all  writers  on  that  science,  from  the 
writings  of  Plato,  in  his  remote  day,  to  the  books  of  E.  Ben¬ 
jamin  Andrews,  in  this  present  time,  that  its  use,  that  is, 
law,  must  necessarily  have  been  the  most  necessitous  and 
earliest  want  of  man;  such  unanimous  opinion  shall  be 
here  recited  in  the  words  penned  by  Walter  Bagehot:  “In 
these  days,  when  we  cannot  by  any  effort  drive  out  of  our 
minds  the  notions  of  law,  we  cannot  imagine  the  mind  of 


20 


one  who  had  never  known  it.  To  sum  up:  law — rigid,  defi¬ 
nite,  concise  law — is  the  primary  want  of  early  mankind; 
that  which  they,  above  everything  else,  require;  that  which 
is  most  requisite  before  anything  else  can  be  gained;  but  it 
is  that  which  is  most  out  of  the  reach  of  primitive  man.” 

We  have  then  a  sufficient  data — a  sufficient  array  of  well 
founded  fact,  without  a  certain  fixed  date  for  its  beginning 
— to  assert  that  law  is  an  essential  element  of  existence;  to 
declare,  with  an  assurance  springing  from  conclusive  proof, 
that  man  is  confronted  now,  and  has  been  so  confronted  in 
all  times  by  the  demand — that  he  shall  solve  the  problem 
of  political  science  and  obtain  therefrom  law,  in  order  that 
he  may  exist — as  an  inexorable  necessity.  Any  movement 
on  the  part  of  society,  or  on  the  part  of  any  politically 
organized  people,  toward  internal  acts  against  fundamental 
law,  would  be  an  equal  number  of  steps  in  the  direction  of 
the  beetling  cliff,  from  which  yawns  the  gulf  of  destruction, 
into  which  a  limited  number  of  similar  acts  would  amount 
to  a  sufficient  number  of  certain  steps,  to  plunge  such  society 
or  people.  If  one  reader  shall  say  the  foregoing  assertion  is 
a  truism,  he  must  be  reminded  that  a  doctrine,  clearly  disput¬ 
ing  the  foregoing  assertion,  has  not  only  been  deliberately  de¬ 
clared,  but  has  been,  by  noisy,  well  trained  and  ornamented 
oratory,  through  the  columns  of  nearly  all  of  the  daily 
papers  of  this  city,  during  the  last  four  months,  most 
vehemently  urged  and  recommended  to  the  people  of  Chi¬ 
cago  for  adoption.  Should  another  reader  declare  that  the 
fundamental  principles  arrayed  in  this  pamphlet  are  not  so 
certain  and  inexorable  as  is  herein  claimed  for  them,  he 
must  be  reminded  that — as  a  lawyer  would  put  it — not  only 
is  the  weight  and  current  of  authority  on  the  subject  against 
his  opinion,  but  the  whole  stream  of  authority,  from  bank 
to  bank,  from  source  to  ostia ,  is  against  him;  nor  shall  it  be 


c 


21 


urged  that  the  words  in  this  work  have  been  penned  in  the 
interest  of  capitalists  only.  The  doctrine  to  which  these 
pages  attempt  to  direct  the  attention  of  a  law-abiding  people, 
is  simply  the  clear,  unmistakable  doctrine  of  all  writers  on 
the  subject — excepting  two  or  three,  denominated  by  E.B. 
Andrews,  socialists  of  the  chair — from  the  writings  of  Moses 
to  essays  of  Edmund  Burke,  and  from  those  essays  to  the 
books,  on  the  same  subject,  of  the  present  day.  What  is  the 
decree  of  God  against  the  first  social-anarchistic  haranguer 
for  municipal  ownership  and  murder  of  industry,  recorded 
in  history?  “  And  the  Lord  said  unto  Cain,  Why  art  thou 
wroth?  and  why  is  thy  countenance  fallen?  If  thou  doest 
well  shalt  thou  not  be  accepted?  and  if  thou  doest  not  well, 
sin  lieth  at  thy  door.”  The  decree  relates  further  that 
Cain  was  not  convinced  that  the  law  announced  to  him  by 
his  Creator  was  an  inexorable  first  principle  impossible  to 
be  amended  or  in  any  way  supplemented :  like  his  dis¬ 
ciples  of  to-day,  Cain  went  into  the  field  to  instill  his 
deadly  rot  into  the  ears  and  heart  of  his  industrious,  pro¬ 
ductive  brother,  and — as  has  been  the  result  with  the  dis¬ 
ciples  of  Cain  ever  since — and,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  ever  will 
be  so — failed  to  get  his  doctrine  adopted  by  an  industrious 
man — Abel.  Cain,  for  his  fratricide,  would  have  received  the 
punishment  of  a  murderer,  but  for  his  still  more  horrible 
crime — socialism — God  decreed  his  perpetual  banishment 
from  the  companionship  of  man  to  that  of  the  baboons  of  Nod. 
The  social-anarchistic  municipal  ownership  crowd,  who 
now  are  recommending  this  same  old  doctrine — first 
rob  industry,  then  slay  it  in  the  field,  or  in  its  work¬ 
shops — in  order  to  escape  the  force  of  this  first  principle, 
and  effect  of  its  violation — declare  that  the  whole  story  is  a 
fable;  that  there  never  was  such  a  God,  such  a  Cain  or 
such  an  Abel.  When  informed  that  all  the  decrees  and 


22 


fundamental  law  of  man  exist  in  complete  harmony  with 
this  first  principle,  they  declare,  in  effect — with  great  em¬ 
phasis — man  is  a  damned  fool  for  making  his  laws  on 
such  lines;  when  informed,  that  all  the  laws  and  decrees  of 
nature  are  in  perfect  accord  with  this  first  principle  of 
God  announced  in  the  early  creation,  they  assert,  in  effect — 
nature  is  lame  in  many  respects;  that  they  can  and  will 
amend  nature,  at  least  to  an  extent  that  shall  permit  of  the 
robbing  and  killing  of  a  few  street  car  companies,  as  an  ex¬ 
perimental  start — in  these  cataclysmical  amendments  pro¬ 
posed  by  them. 

Themistocles,  an  ancient  Greek,  recognizing  the  wisdom 
of  fostering  industries  of  the  people,  said  :  “  I  do  not  know 
how  to  fiddle,  but  I  do  know  how  to  make  a  small  town 
become  a  great  city.5’  Could  it  be  that  Francis  Bacon — 
through  some  gift  of  psychomancy,  in  the  very  first  years 
of  the  17th  century — was  pointing  directly  to  a  young  mayor 
who  was  to  spring  up,  in  a  great  city,  in  the  very  last  years 
of  the  19th  century,  by  these  startling  words?  “  As  on  the 
other  side,  there  will  be  found  a  great  many  that  can  fiddle 
very  cunningly,  but  yet  are  so  far  from  being  able  to  make 
a  small  town  or  state  great,  as  their  gift  lieth  the  other  way  : 
to  bring  a  great  and  flourishing  estate  to  ruin  and  decay. 
And  certainly,  those  degenerate  arts  and  shifts  whereby 
many  counsellors  and  governors  gain  both  favor  with  their 
masters” — (now  the  people  here) — “and  estimation  with  the 
vulgar,  deserve  no  better  name  than  fiddling;  being  things 
rather  pleasing  for  the  time,  and  graceful  to  themselves 
only,  than  tending  to  the  weal  and  advancement  of  the 
state  which  they  serve.” 

Man  is  a  political  animal;  laws  are  as  essential  to  his 
well  being  and  existence  as  the  food  upon  which  he  subsists. 
Society  can  not  drift,  not  even  infinitesimally  slightly,  toward 


23 


the  abrogation  of  law — “  stern,  rigid,  necesitous  law — ” 
without  experiencing  a  shock  of  discomfort  throughout 
the  limits  of  the  society  so  drifting.  Shall  the  earth  drift 
the  least  fraction  out  of  its  path  around  the  sun,  without  its 
mass  from  pole  to  pole,  from  center  to  circumference,  receiv¬ 
ing  a  shock?  Let  this  social-anarchistic  municipal-owner¬ 
ship  would-be-robbers  and  killers-of-labor  crowd  be  here 
informed,  in  closing,  that  the  people  of  the  United  States 
have  too  fair  a  start — too  much  of  an  impetus  in  the  right 
direction,  received  from  their  industries — to  be  ever  pulled 
back  to  the  destruction  recommended  by  it.  Can  the  pos¬ 
sibility  be  conceived  of  this  refined,  polished,  scholarly, 
Christian  Chicago,  being  by  ignorant  or  charlatan  politi¬ 
cians  howled  into  the  ridiculous  act  of  setting  up,  as  a 
deity,  a  one-eyed  god,  a  joss,  a  frog,  a  crocodile,  a  bull  or  a 
toad? 

In  China,  a  nation  still  largely  barbarous,  the  govern¬ 
ment — the  emperor — has  municipal  ownership  right,  that  is, 
the  right  to  rob  or  decapitate  any  citizen  without  fear  of 
troublesome  questions  being  asked.  In  China  the  honest 
citizen  finds  it  necessary,  each  morning  before  beginning 
his  breakfast,  to  make  a  cursory  examination  of  his  neck 
to  see  whether  his  thorax  remains  in  sufficient  touch  with 
his  head  to  enable  him  to  pass  his  food  to  his  stomach.  In 
Russia,  the  government — the  Czar — a  power  of  municipal 
ownership  exists,  but  the  Czar  deems  it  unhealthy  to  rob 
his  subjects  ;  it  is  said,  however,  friends  of  the  Czar  rather 
too  frequently,  mysteriously  drop  out  of  sight  in  Russia  and 
bob  up  in  the  mines  of  Siberia;  presenting  the  singular 
phenomena  of  having  accumulated  m'ore  iron  and  parted 
with  more  gold  during  their  strange  disappearance  and 
reappearance  than  is  recommended  by  any  known  system 
of  therapeutics. 


f 


“  Ha,  ha,’  cried  Mr.  Pecksniff,  softly.  ‘  He  heard  me  in¬ 
side  just  now,  I  have  no  doubt.  In  regard  to  the  fluted 
pillars  in  the  portico,  my  dears — ’  ‘  Hallo,  cried  the  gen¬ 

tleman.’  ‘  Sir,  your  servant,’  said  Mr.  Pecksniff,  taking  off 
his  hat:  £I  am  proud  to  make  your  acquaintance.’  ‘Come 
off  the  grass,  will  you,’  roared  the  gentleman;  e  You  are  in¬ 
truding,  unwarrantably  intruding — trespassing.  You  see 
the  gravel  walk,  don’t  you?  What  do  you  think  it’s  meant 
for?  Open  the  gate  there;  show  that  party  out!  ” 

Miss  Lillian  A.  Whitney. 

512  Otto  St.,  Chicago. 


January  31,  1899. 


